


i was never sure how much of you i could let in

by houseofballoons



Category: Teenage Bounty Hunters
Genre: Progressive angst, but like, pure angst, with a happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:53:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26078266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houseofballoons/pseuds/houseofballoons
Summary: And anyway, April didn’t dump her per se. She just... decided Sterling wasn’t worth fighting for.
Relationships: Sterling Wesley/April Stevens
Comments: 70
Kudos: 547





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in like 6 years, so please forgive me if this is rubbish. I needed to get it out!
> 
> p.s. April's dad is still a jerk in this, but Sterling didn't send him to jail.

In the week she spends off school post-kidnapping, Sterling receives nearly 300 texts.

200 or so of them are from Blair – mostly her usual stream of consciousness and inane updates about her day, mingled in with the odd selfie of her pulling stupid faces, or looking bored in class. To her credit, Blair manages to refrain from constantly asking Sterling if she is okay, and Sterling appreciates the attempt to maintain some sense of normalcy between them, as though they hadn’t just discovered their “parents” had been lying to them their entire lives. Blair had clung to her that first night, and sworn through floods of tears that nothing had changed, that they were still sisters, and Sterling had just nodded numbly, not trusting herself to speak and not knowing what she’d even say if she did. She tries to remind herself every day that it doesn’t matter who gave birth to her, Blair is her sister - the other half of her whole - and they are both just as wrecked as one another by all of this. So they resolutely refuse to entertain the idea that anything is different, even though deep down they probably both know it’s only a matter of time before that particular string unravels, but that’s a forthcoming breakdown for another day.

At least another 50 of the texts are from Luke. Poor, loyal, sweet, Luke. The first few are to tell Sterling how much he missed her and how much he had enjoyed talking to her (and kissing her) at the lock-in. Come Monday, he’s asking where she is - if she’s okay - and on Tuesday, he’s asks if she’s avoiding him, or has changed her mind. By Wednesday, he threatens to stop by to check on her and it is then that Sterling finally replies to tell him she’s fine and she’ll see him in a few days when she’s not feeling so “under the weather”. The lone smiley face he sends in response sits heavily in her stomach.

There are a smattering of messages from classmates. From Bowser. Even a text from Ellen.

Three _hundred_ messages.

April doesn’t message her once.

A month ago, the thought wouldn’t have even registered in her brain. Now it _gnaws_ at her. With every passing day and every ding of a message from someone who isn’t April, she fights the stupid urge to cry. She makes it until Thursday before she (not so) subtly drops April’s name into a conversation with Blair, who is suddenly utterly fascinated by something on her phone, and the silence stretches awkwardly for a moment.

“Has she been at school?” Sterling asks after a moment, trying and probably failing to convey indifference as she inspects her nails.

Blair scoffs. “Since when have you known Little Miss Prissy Perfectpants to miss school?” she deadpans, wincing at her own tone almost immediately. Blair must notice how Sterling tries resolutely to look anywhere but directly at her, and she softens momentarily looking like she is carefully weighing up her next words. “She asked about you,” she says quietly, returning her attention quickly to her phone.

Sterling’s head snaps up, her eyes wide and mouth hanging open. “What?” she demands, her voice coming out high-pitched and strangled, startling them both. Blair looks at her with wide eyes, so she clears her throat and waves her hand dismissively, aiming for something a little less manic and a little more casual. “I just meant, uh, what did she say, exactly?” she finishes lamely, hands fidgeting and looking to the floor.

Blair eyes her carefully. “She just asked where you were and when you were coming back.”

“Oh, right. Right.”

She should probably just drop it. Change the topic.

“Asked as in… she missed me?”

“Asked as in, she was probably wondering where you were, but was too much of a spineless weasel to just text and ask you herself…”

“Blair!” she practically whines, ready to launch into a full inquisition of exactly what April had said. And how she had said it. And how she looked _when_ she said it. “Why didn’t you tell me!”

“I didn’t want to set you off again,” Blair replies defensively, “I mean I don’t know why you care when she dumped you”. At Sterling’s wounded face, she softens. “Sorry. I just mean.. she’s not worth thinking about Sterl. It was only a matter of time before she showed her true colours again,” she reasons, frowning and tilting her head sympathetically.

Sterling huffs and looks out the window. She sort of gets the hostility but, well, Blair doesn’t really know the real April at all. And anyway, April didn’t dump her per se. She just... decided Sterling wasn’t worth fighting for. The reminder causes a burning sensation somewhere in her ribcage and she rubs at her chest absentmindedly and frowns. Maybe she doesn’t really know the real April either.

* * *

Sterling finds she dreads her first day back with every fibre of her being, but she and Blair both agree she can’t spend much longer sulking at home trying to ignore their (lying asshole) parents, and so she finds herself standing outside school in the quad minutes before the first bell, reluctance rolling off her in waves. Blair all but drags her in.

It’s hard to know if she’s just paranoid, or if the entire student body is staring at her as she passes through the halls. Not that anyone knows anything, Blair assures her, but Sterling knows fine well the gossip will be rife and goodness knows what rumours have spread through the corridors in her absence (albeit rumours probably actually _less_ scandalous than the real story, for a change). She moves through her morning on auto-pilot and relies on Blair to run interference whenever anyone starts to fuss over her or ask too many questions, and for the most part, it feels almost normal.

That is at least, until she’s sat in Spanish, staring at the empty chair in front of her as the class fills up and she briefly wonders aloud to Blair whether maybe she could just skip the rest of the day, you know, _ease back into it_ after the total _trauma_ of the past week. At Blair’s pointed look she sighs and turns back round, fidgeting with her pen. Blair’s right, this is _stupid_ , she thinks, sitting up a little straighter and steeling herself – she’s a big girl, and so what if things just go back to the way they were, her life was perfectly fine before.

But then she’s there, power walking into the classroom with her patented glower firmly in place and Sterling only gets a moment to take her in unnoticed before April reaches her desk and freezes. Sterling swallows as she watches the usually unflappable girl falter, mouth opening and closing uselessly as her eyes roam over Sterling’s face.

“You’re back,” she breathes out softly, before she seems to catch herself, clearing her throat and lifting her chin as she forces a neutral expression onto her face, whatever (brief) moment they were in now gone. So it’s like that, Sterling thinks.

“Looks like it,” she says with a tight, dismissive smile and a shrug of her shoulders, even if it doesn’t really feel like her. Only when she tries to look down at her notepad – fully intending not to give April a moment more of her time or attention - she finds she’s unable to stop the way her eyes travel back upwards seemingly of their own accord. April seems unable to look away either, and Sterling’s attention is drawn briefly downwards to the sharp rise and fall of April’s chest as her breathing seems to quicken and her hand tightly grips the back of her chair. Something unidentifiable aches in Sterling’s chest and she’s so caught up in the way April’s lips are slightly parted and her eyes are slightly glassy that she doesn’t notice Luke approaching until he calls her name, snapping both girls from their staring match.

He looks so pleased to see her and when he bends slightly to pull Sterling into a rough hug, she just barely catches the rueful look in April’s eyes and the way her jaw muscles tense before she turns away to take her seat, and Sterling prickles with disappointment. She awkwardly hugs Luke back, her head pressed uncomfortably into his chest.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he says, smiling as he stands, and Sterling can’t help the way her eyes flick between his hopeful face and the way April’s practically trying to disappear into her school bag under the pretence of looking for a pen. “Uh, thanks” she mumbles quietly, not really looking at him and trying to shrink back into her chair. “Hey, uh, perhaps we could… or I could, you know, join you. For lunch. After this?” he asks eagerly, and Sterling waves her hand awkwardly. “Oh. I uh.. already had lunch plans with Blair,” she rambles, but Luke is seemingly undeterred. “Great. I’ll come find you both after class!” he smiles as he moves to take his seat, and Sterling lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, eyes closing in quiet exasperation.

Sterling tries, she really does, to focus her attention on the teacher who has now started talking at the front of the class. But really, April is sat directly in her eye line, so she can hardly be blamed. Her eyes roam over April’s perfect ponytail, and the way her shoulders are tight with tension, and the expanse of her neck and the small delicate necklace she wears. She wonders, not for the first time, whether this hyperawareness of all-things-April was always there. Even when they were barely on speaking terms, Sterling realises she thought about April more often than she could really rationally explain. She’s not sure why she remembers so many little details – books April read, songs she liked, jokes she laughed at. She remembers all the little barbs April has thrown her way over the past few years, and she remembers every single one of the quieter moments where it seemed for a split second like April might actually let her guard down, before the walls inevitably flew up and she brushed Sterling off.

Sterling remembers it all, and it only makes it worse. She’s spent half of the past week convincing herself that she’s angry at April - for flirting with Luke, for not choosing her, for not reaching out to her. Sat behind her now though, close enough she could reach out and touch her if she wanted, Sterling reluctantly finds she’s not really angry with April at all, and that’s probably the worst part.

* * *

The story is usually the same – Sterling and April come across each other in class, or Fellowship, or in Forensics, and most days, April looks like she can’t get away from her fast enough. Surprisingly, it’s not what Sterling expects – she had been counting on April putting up her usual front, perhaps very purposely pretending nothing had ever happened between them in the first place. After all, April really was the Queen of casual indifference when it suited her.

Sterling isn’t really prepared though for the way April seems to shrink into herself, or how she spends her lunchtimes picking aimlessly at her food while Ezekiel and Hannah B talk across her. She hasn’t even heard a single biting remark towards anyone in their shared classes, and Lord knows she’s had plenty of opportunities. 

There are moments though. Moments when she catches April watching her forlornly across the student lounge when she thinks Sterling isn't looking. Moments when their eyes meet, and the air crackles when neither of them can look away. Moments when they sit silently next to each other in class and Sterling swears April's arm inches across the table towards her... Just moments, though.

But April’s carefully constructed avoidance unravels on a Tuesday afternoon when they’re forced together under the guise of helping out with the upcoming food drive the school is organising. Sterling isn’t really in the mood when Ellen asks if she’ll stay behind after class to help, but she could do with some peace from Blair’s fussing and her parents constantly treading on eggshells around her, so she agrees somewhat reluctantly. It’s only when she arrives in the library and notices April already sat at a long table that Sterling realises she’s been duped, and judging from the look on April’s face, she also wasn’t expecting this to be a paired activity. Ellen practically frog marches her into the room by the shoulders when she freezes at the door, and before she knows it she’s sat opposite her former… friend? Nemesis? Girlfriend?

“Ya’ll are lifesavers, girls. Now, all the leaflets are printed out here. This pile needs folded like pamphlets and these ones go into envelopes. Got it?”

April looks like a cornered animal who might flee at any minute.

“You know actually Ellen, I just remembered I have a big Geography project due tomorrow so I’m not sure I can…”

“Great!” Ellen all but yells at the pair of them, clapping her hands together and causing them both to jump. “I’ll be down the hall in my office if you need me!”

Then she’s gone, leaving the two of them alone for the first time in weeks. April sighs and pulls a stack of leaflets towards her, but she still won’t look at her, and Sterling honestly doesn’t think she can stand it.

“You can go if you want, if you have stuff to do. I’m sure I could manage this by myself,” Sterling says uncertainly, not sure what kind of response if any she’ll get from April, who has barely said two words to her in what feels like a lifetime.

“It’s fine,” she sighs, her tone clipped. There's a long pause and Sterling thinks that's probably as much conversation as she's getting, but April speaks up again. “I’d rather be here than at home right now anyway.”

Sterling frowns, and April catches it when she glances up, a mild look of panic crossing her features before the usual mask slides into place. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure Ellen would find some other contrived way to force us to play nice, we might as well get it out the way,” she remarks offhandedly. Before, Sterling might have chalked it up to April just being, well, April. She knows better now though, and she knows deflection when she sees it.

“I thought you’d be happy now your Dad was home,” Sterling says, not quite managing to keep the petulance from her voice. How different would things be if he was still in prison? April’s lips are pursed and she’s quiet for a long moment, so when the response eventually comes it isn’t what Sterling expects.

“So did I.”

Sterling takes a minute to look at her, really look at her. Her face looks thinner, paler – the usual light flush she wears over her cheeks and the tips of her ears is noticeably absent. She looks tired, and Sterling notices for the first time – a little sad. Her thoughts stray for a moment to John Stevens – Sterling’s heard the rumours. She knows in all likelihood he’s not a good guy, and that he’s engaged in some pretty shady if not deplorable behaviour. For the first time though, she realises she’s never actually given that much thought to whether that deplorable behaviour extends to his own daughter, and the realisation causes her stomach to sink violently.

It was easier not to think of him at all whilst he was sat in prison - even if it hurt right now, April was better off without him. Only John Stevens isn’t in prison anymore, and her mind whirls with awful scenarios so much so that when she speaks again she thinks the worry is evident in her voice.

“He hasn’t… he hasn’t done something has he? Or said something?”

“Nothing out of character, no,” April replies shortly, not looking up from the paper she’s folding, and Sterling wonders what exactly that means. “It’s complicated,” she sighs eventually. “Things felt… simpler, when he was away.” April looks up slightly, not all the way to Sterling's face, but enough that she is watching the way Sterling fiddles with the paper in front of her. She takes a deep breath, her eyebrows lifting for a second before she scrunches her eyes shut and turns her head to the side, breaking the reverie. Sterling wants to reach out but she doesn't.

“You know if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here,” she offers genuinely without even really thinking about it, dipping her head to try and catch the other girl's eye. April finally looks up at her properly, hands stilling, scepticism written all over her face.

“Why?” she asks, eyebrows knitting together. Sterling mirrors her expression.

“Why what?”

“Why would we talk about that? We weren’t friends before we… before. I’m not sure we need to pretend otherwise now.”

It doesn’t even really matter that deep down Sterling knows April is only lashing out because she hates to appear vulnerable. The words tear into her either way. She had hoped, stupidly perhaps, that after everything, they would be beyond this now.

“Yeah you’ve made that pretty clear. Message received.”

Sterling wants to leave, but she feels eyes on her and it’s like she’s pinned in place. April seems to deflate, and Sterling takes a deep breath to try and stop the way her eyes are now starting to sting. April reaches half way across the table but stops short of reaching her hand.

“It’s better this way,” she reasons but it comes out broken and tentative and sounding far more like a question than a statement. When Sterling doesn't trust herself to move or respond, April shakes her head slightly like she’s trying to rid herself of any thoughts to the contrary and withdraws her hand, sitting back in her chair. “You can go back to your old life before any of this…” she says, a forced breezy tone in place, “…complicated everything.”

“And what makes you think I want to go back to my old life?” Sterling demands, voice finally breaking and all thoughts of trying to appear aloof gone. She should have known they’d end up like this, voices raised, teeth bared. April recoils and looks at Sterling in wounded disbelief.

“Well you kissed Luke. I sort of inferred the rest.”

Oh.

April delivers it with such venom that Sterling just sits there dumbly for a moment. Whatever façade April had been clinging to is gone in instant, her nostrils flaring and eyes suddenly glassy with unshed tears.

“I... It’s not what you think-“

“I don’t care,” April snaps, wrenching her gaze away and blinking down at the stack of paper in front of her like she’d forgotten why she was there in the first place, her chest heaving. Sterling’s not stupid - she can see that isn’t true – but she feels weeks of frustration over just about every aspect of her sorry life bubbling up until she’s lashing out.

“Yeah well, why would you? I mean did you even really like me or was this all just another one of your power games?” she hisses as she leans forward across the table.

April looks crestfallen, and it doesn’t feel one bit satisfying to Sterling. She doesn’t even wait for an answer, too afraid she’ll burst into tears any minute and she cannot cry in front of April Stevens again. In a split second she’s up and half way toward the door before she feels the tug on her arm whirling her back around, the touch burning her skin even through her blazer.

“Sterling wait-”

And Sterling couldn’t stop it if she tried – it tumbles out of her desperately. “You said that I had you. You said that we were in this together but then you just dropped me like I didn’t even matter to you at all!”

“That’s… that’s not true,” April cries desperately, tears rapidly building in her eyes, “Sterling I..." She looks small and lost. "You know that I care-“

“Do I? You didn’t even call!” she practically yells, and April sags, but Sterling just doesn’t know when to stop. “I got kidnapped, and everyone in this whole damned school cared enough to check and see if I was okay, except you!”

Sterling only realises how close they are standing when April takes a step back like she’s been struck.

“You… what?” she stutters, eyes wide in disbelief. Crap.

Sterling tries, but she’s finding it suddenly difficult to form words. April is shaking her head and backing up like she probably wouldn’t hear her anyway.

“No,” she says shaking her head, “No, Blair said you were sick. She said to leave you alone.” Her tone is pleading but Sterling isn’t sure which one of the two of them she’s even speaking to. Her eyes are frantic as they pore over Sterling as if looking for some visible sign of damage.

Sterling finds she’s not able to hold the tears back any longer, and she turns her head and tries frantically to blink them away. She can’t do this, not right now. All the repressed feelings she’s been bottling up the past few weeks are flooding in at once and the proximity of April is too much. She can smell the faint trace of her perfume and she loosely aware of the goosebumps that have erupted across her arms and neck. She wants to crash into her, but she know she can’t. She isn’t allowed to. So she runs instead, heart pounding in her chest as April calls desperately after her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, thank you for all the lovely comments and kudos! Was honestly unsure about starting writing again, so it makes it all the more worthwhile! :)

It’s ironic, she supposes, that April would finally remember how to use her phone right when Sterling decides she’d actually quite like to be left alone.

The first time April calls her is not long after she arrives home from their disastrous encounter at school. Thankfully Blair is out – taking rare advantage of Sterling having other plans – and her parents are nowhere to be seen either, so she is free to flop down face first on her bed and cry into her pillow in peace.

That is, until her phone starts buzzing in the back pocket of her jeans and she yelps with a start, pulling it out of her pocket and rolling onto her back with a huff. Blair will only worry if Sterling doesn’t answer, and she could do without a repeat of what happened last time – Blair bursting into her room, manic and (quite literally) guns blazing.

It’s not Blair though, and it’s been so long since she saw April’s name pop up on her screen that she takes a sharp breath in when she sees the caller ID. Sterling freezes, hand hovering over the accept button out of reflex, before the line eventually cuts dead and she blinks at the now silent phone. She finds herself watching it for a good minute longer, waiting for a voicemail notification, or for it to ring again, but nothing. She sighs, pulling herself up to a sitting position, and rubs her face. At least the deluge of tears has finally stopped, but she’s exhausted and she makes a move to settle under the covers, pulling them up over her face.

She lies like that - a little depressed burrito - for almost exactly 15 minutes before her phone rings again. Like the masochist she is, Sterling watches April’s call ring out for the second time.

Sterling can’t help her mind wandering to the other girl – if she’s still at school, why she’s calling, whether she’s upset. She guesses it’s maybe a bit unreasonable to drop the kidnap-bomb then immediately run a mile but she’s struggling enough to be in April’s presence at the minute without needing to delve into her own painful familial trauma for good measure.

The third time her phone rings, she nearly breaks. It’s exactly 15 minutes again after the last call, and Sterling almost smiles thinking about how it would be just like April to have sat and concluded upon a socially acceptable amount of time to wait before calling again. Sterling feels somehow worse this time though. Regardless of how complicated things are between them, it doesn’t really sit right with her ignoring April.

It’s the lone text that eventually gets her.

_Please don’t shut me out._

Objectively, Sterling knows she shouldn’t get her hopes up (for what, she’s not even sure), but her traitorous heart knows no better. At least this is a sign, however small, that April does indeed care.

She’s sat bolt upright now, typing furiously into her phone. Deleting. Re-typing. She wonders if April is sat watching the three dots disappear and re-appear, if it toys with her heart the same way it would Sterling’s. She must try about 20 variations, ranging from pretending absolutely nothing is wrong to telling April she needs her, before she settles on something vaguely neutral.

_I’m okay. I’ll see you at school x_

She stares at her phone for an April-approved 15 minutes, and another 20 for good measure, but there’s no reply.

* * *

Sterling has barely been at school five minutes, milling about in the student lounge, when April marches over to her. Under any other circumstances, it’d be a sight for sore eyes, but Sterling fidgets nervously under the intense stare that reminds her that April is singularly driven when she sets her mind to something. And right now, that _something_ is apparently her.

“Sterling, there you are,” she says as though she’s just stumbled across her by accident, “A moment?” Her tone is all business - not unkind, but not dissimilar to the way she’d have addressed Sterling months ago. She almost forgets Blair is next to her until she’s stepping forward, positioning herself slightly in front of Sterling as she stares down April with a faux smile and a tilt of the head.

“I’m sorry, did you need something?”

April’s eyes don’t leave Sterling.

“Oh you know, just Fellowship business. Sterling?”

Sterling’s eyes flit back and forth between the two, sensing an impending argument. Blair normally (perhaps wisely) tends to give April a wide berth, but today she looks like she’s spoiling for a fight and whilst Sterling is touched by the protectiveness, she could also do without the attention right now. And honestly, much as she loves her sister (not cousin), she knows fine well there’d only be one winner there. Before Blair can open her mouth, Sterling places a hand on her arm to get her attention.

“It’s fine, Blair. I’ll see you at break?”

Blair hesitates like she might argue, but upon noticing Sterling’s pleading look only rolls her eyes before she skulks off. Sterling barely has time to turn her attention back to April before she’s being dragged away, and she tries desperately to ignore the warm feeling settling in her stomach that accompanies the tight grip April has on her arm.

She’s pulled into an empty classroom (relieved for the sake of her own sanity that it’s not one of the school’s closets…) and the sound of the door clicking shut pulls her out of her own thoughts. April leans against the door, her hands tucked behind her as she watches Sterling silently. The room is dim with the lights not switched on, and it only adds to the sombre atmosphere that stretches between them. Sterling fiddles with the ends of her hair just so she has something to do.

“I uh.. I’m sorry. For running off yesterday,” she says eventually, although it’s more to break the silence than anything else.

“Guess I have that effect on people,” April muses, tone indecipherable but smiling slightly for just a second before her face grows serious. “Are you okay?”

Not really, but she doesn’t really enjoy getting into it either.

“Oh yeah, I’m like, totally fine. All good.”

Judging by the frown and raised eyebrow she gets in response, April (unsurprisingly) isn’t buying it.

“Honestly, ‘kidnap’ was a little strong,” she explains with air-quotes, “it was more of a.. family related misunderstanding. Minor scurfuffle. You know me – flair for the dramatic!”

The way she’s unable to keep her wildly gesticulating hands still should probably be a dead give-away, if not the way her voice is about two octaves higher than it normally is. April just sighs, her shoulders slumping against the door. She bites her lip, and Sterling’s eyes are immediately drawn to the movement.

“You don’t have to do that with me, you know,” she says, so quietly Sterling isn’t completely sure she heard her right. There’s a sadness in her eyes that Sterling decides she’s seen too much of in recent weeks.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call. I wanted to. I…”

She looks like she’s searching for something in Sterling’s face, but just when she looks like she might speak again she clenches her jaw shut and exhales a long breath through her nose.

“I just… I’m sorry,” she eventually manages in a small voice before she looks away, “I don’t want to make your life more difficult.”

There is something about the resignation in the words and the way she says them that sets off panic in Sterling’s chest. April has pushed herself forward off the door and if she turns now and walks away, Sterling isn’t sure when they will next be together alone like this. If they ever will again. That fear must be the only explanation for her outburst.

“My parents aren’t my real parents!”

If the circumstances were different, the goldfish impression April does as she processes that piece of information might have been amusing.

“I- what?”

Sterling feels the familiar burning in her chest when she thinks about it, and she vaguely hopes April will accept the Cliffs Notes version of the story.

“My Mom has a twin that we didn’t know about. A criminal, psychotic twin. Who is my birth Mother.”

“Your-“

“She took me after the lock-in. I think she was going to try and blackmail my parents for money or something. But they found me and put a stop to it. And now Mom’s twin… Dana… is in prison.”

Sterling rattles through it so quickly she has to stop to take a deep breath at the end. She feels the familiar sting of tears threatening to make themselves known and pushes her tongue into her cheek to try and stem them. April looks... confused, mainly. But Sterling thinks she sees the moment of realisation dawn on her, when April’s face falls.

“…and Blair?”

Sterling swallows hard, vision now fully blurred with unshed tears for about the millionth time in the past month. Man, she is tired of crying. She smiles bitterly.

“Not my real sister.”

April seems to crumple at that, and Sterling can’t even find it in herself to analyse it, or the way that April’s eyes are shimmering with… pity? She looks away and crosses her arms defensively, unable to bear the scrutiny of April’s gaze.

She feels more than she sees the way April steps tentatively towards her, and it’s only when a hand lands carefully on top of her folded arms that she looks back up through her matted eyelashes.

“You know that’s not true right?” she asks softly, and Sterling blinks helplessly back at her. “I mean, you probably don’t need me to tell you but… It doesn’t matter who gave birth to who. Blair is your sister in all the ways the matter, always will be.” April looks so _earnest_ when she says it, and when she smiles Sterling’s heart clenches. “I mean… I dare anyone to try and tell her differently. I can’t even fathom the carnage.”

April shakes her head at the image and Sterling lets out a watery laugh despite herself. She knows April is right, never really doubted it, but there is something about hearing it from someone who isn’t Blair or her Mom that feels validating somehow.

She takes a deep breath to steady herself and it’s only really then that she realises just how close they are standing together. There’s a strange mix of contentment and tension swirling in her stomach that is not helped by the way April’s eyes slide down to her lips before they snap back up, guilty and flashing with panic like she’s been caught.

The reaction stings, because Sterling knows it means their moment is coming to an end. Any minute now, April will step back and put distance between them, and Sterling will go back to being just a casual acquaintance or classmate.

Only April steps forward instead, hovering awkwardly for only a moment, before she stands on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around Sterling. The hold is loose at first, highly tentative, and Sterling is so genuinely shocked that she doesn’t actually know what to do with her hands. It’s only when she feels April tense and start to pull back that she snaps out of it, arms reaching out to pull April closer as she clings to the back of her sweater. She feels the small sigh that escapes April’s lips ghost across her neck and she only tightens her hold in response, burying her face into April’s neck.

Blair will tell her off later, and really, she knows she’s likely only making this harder for herself when April has already told her they can’t be together. But as she lets the smell of April’s strawberry shampoo overwhelm her senses she finds, for just a moment, that she doesn’t really care.


	3. Chapter 3

Things shift between them, afterwards.

Sterling thinks about their stolen classroom moment a lot, in the days that follow it. When she’s sat in class, or dishing up frozen yoghurt, or lying in bed at night with her fingers trailing just below her belly button… She doesn’t dwell on the fact that April had eventually tensed and withdrawn from her after hearing a noise in the hallway, or how she’d made excuses about needing to leave to go study for a test that Sterling knew fine well didn’t exist. She does remember the way April’s body seemed to betray her words though, lingering in Sterling’s space for a moment too long for someone who had just announced they ‘really had to go’. Twice.

When April finally does leave, Sterling doesn’t feel the heavy dread she’d had the last time she’d watched her walk away, because there is something vaguely reminiscent of hope flickering in her stomach, and that is how it starts.

It’s not a sea-change, admittedly, but it is a thawing.

Sometimes, Sterling actually wonders if it’s better or worse.

It’s one thing April ignoring her, or running a mile as soon as she’s within 5 feet of Sterling. The quiet smiles that she shoots her when she passes her in the halls now, or the fondly exasperated sighs she huffs when Sterling tries to roll her Rs in Spanish are something else entirely though, something far more ruinous.

When things were strained between them, or April was cold to her, Sterling could almost pretend she was better off without her, holding on to some sense of defiant anger. But in April’s presence or caught up in her gaze, she feels untethered and guileless, not sure if she wants to combust or cry every time April so much as looks in her direction.

She wonders about the toll on the other girl too. Most of the time it’s impossible to know what April’s really thinking - it’s been that way for years - so skilled she is at burying the parts of herself she wants no-one to see. Sometimes, Sterling lets herself wonder if her attempts to remain in April’s orbit are more of a hindrance than a help, but then that would presume to know how the other girl really feels about her, which - half the time - remains a mystery.

Blair side-eyes most of their limited interactions with the air of someone furiously biting their tongue, despite Sterling’s protestations that there is _nothing_ going on there anymore.

“Oh yeah? Have you tried telling your face?” Blair challenges her one day in the library, prodding Sterling’s cheek with a pen to pull her attention away from how April is twirling a strand of hair around her finger as she reads two tables down from them.

“What are you talking about?” she asks, furrowing her brow and swatting Blair’s hand away, dodging the follow up attempt to prod her in the stomach.

“I’m talking about the mooning, Sterl. Pretty sure it could be seen from space. It’s very unbecoming,” Blair complains, face wrinkling in distaste.

“There is no mooning,” she protests weakly. “I don’t moon.”

“Dude, I’m half expecting you to boombox serenade her across the cafeteria any day now. I’m just saying, you may want to reign it in a little,” she says, holding up her hands. “Control your hormones.”

Sterling gapes open mouthed at her sister.

“I cannot express _strongly enough_ how ironic that is coming from you, Blair.”

“Yeah, well my hormones are in hibernation right now. Yours are fogging up the whole library.”

Sterling pulls a face at her sister, but instead of returning her attention to her math textbook she finds it inexplicably drawn two tables down again, and Blair scoffs.

“Don’t.”

* * *

When April seems to blank her in the corridor a few days later, Sterling tries not to think too much of it. But when Senora O’Reilly asks them at the end of one of their Spanish classes to pair off for a homework assignment (and Sterling’s heart does somersaults for entirely unrelated reasons), she finds that sense of dread rearing its ugly head again. Because whilst she stares a hole into April’s back, resolutely ignoring the whisper-shouts of her name from Blair, April looks frozen in place. Sterling watches her turn to her left, turn to her right, watches her sigh.

Then for a long moment, April doesn’t move at all.

Students are starting to shuffle out and with her window closing, April eventually half turns in her seat, eyes scanning the room to either side of Sterling without actually looking at her. Whatever excitement Sterling had been feeling drains from her in a long sigh, which ironically finally catches April’s attention.

Sterling is not a quitter, so she ploughs on regardless.

“I’ll pair up with you April,” she says as casually as she can muster, and April weighs the offer up, biting her lip. Sterling sees Luke approaching their desks out of her peripheral vision, and when April notices it she seems to make her mind up, a rushed _“fine”_ falling from her lips before she’s shoving her things haphazardly in her bag and rushing out the door.

“Is she having a breakdown or something?” Blair asks quizzically, rounding Sterling’s desk to pick up a pen April had left behind, twiddling it between her fingers.

Sterling has no clue what just happened.

* * *

When April (willingly, despite alternative options) takes the seat next to her later that afternoon in Bible Studies, Sterling wonders if she’s destined to exist in a permanent state of emotional whiplash when it comes to the other girl.

After the bell rings signalling the end of the school day, April seems to linger deliberately, taking her time to pack up her things. It's uncharacteristic for her, normally so focused and economical with everything she does. Sterling’s brain screams at her to just leave and find Blair to go home, but her body has other ideas - as it often does these days when it comes to April - and she finds she's struggling to find the will to leave this quiet little bubble that exists around them.

“Luke asked me out,” April says eventually, not looking up from her bag and as though she were merely commenting on the weather, and this time Sterling’s whiplash is literal rather than figurative.

“Oh?” is all she can manage, mentally patting herself on the back that her voice hasn’t betrayed the way she currently feels like crawling out of her own skin. “And what did you say?”

April looks up at her, eyebrow raised but expression otherwise guarded.

“No. Obviously.”

“Oh. Okay.”

She glances briefly to the ceiling. _Finally_ , the big man has her back, she thinks.

April’s eyes narrow though and she shifts closer, voice lowering in a way the makes the hairs on the back of Sterling’s neck stand up.

“What game are you playing Sterling?”

Though she has no clue what April is talking about, the accusatory edge in her tone hits Sterling like a tonne of bricks. April's cheeks are flushed, her jaw set.

“What…? What do you mean?” she stutters, nerves shredding.

“You told Luke to ask me out,” April states plainly, and Sterling grips the table so hard her knuckles start to turn white. “What is this, some kind of sick joke to you?”

Her eyes are flashing dangerously, and Sterling recalls with a vague sinking feeling the last meaningful conversation she’d had with Luke. She’d apologised for kissing him and giving him the wrong idea, and he had mercifully seemed to take it in his stride. But then he had asked if Sterling had kissed him because of April, and Sterling had panicked, afraid of spilling secrets that weren’t hers to spill, and she had blurted out for the second time that Luke should ask April out. With the benefit of hindsight, Sterling knows that Luke had thought Sterling was jealous _of_ April, not _because of_ her, and she had definitely fucked up.

“What, no, I… he asked me if it was okay, and I…”

“You what?" she snaps irritably, "Told him to go for it? Shoot his shot with the school lesbian?” April’s voice is barely above a furious whisper but Sterling glances round nervously anyway, realising for the first time that the classroom now appears to be empty. Even Ellen has taken her leave - closing the door behind her, Sterling notes.

“Of course not,” she hisses back, anger swelling in her stomach that April would actually think that of her. “What was I supposed to say to him, ‘Don’t bother, you’re barking up the wrong tree’? Anyway, you were the one flirting with him, remember? I thought maybe this was what you wanted.”

April eyes bore into her so intensely that Sterling finds herself holding her breath, awaiting whatever killer blow she is about to be dealt.

“I can’t have what I want.”

Sterling can’t be sure at which point April’s eyes became quite so dark, but staring into them right now feels like falling into a black hole. She leans almost imperceptibly closer, drawn by some invisible force that she's powerless to control.

“You could,” she whispers, hand reaching across the table until it barely brushes April's, “if you’d let yourself.”

There are so many emotions flickering across April’s face that Sterling is having a hard time pinning down any one of them, and the sudden vulnerability emanating from her warms and chills Sterling at the same time, sparking memories of their brief time as a *thing*.

April stands so abruptly, her chair skidding loudly and harshly behind her, that Sterling lets out a startled noise she’s never heard herself make before. She jumps up instinctively, trailing the other girl frantically as she makes a beeline for the door, both sets of books and bags forgotten on the desk. April doesn’t get to just walk away anytime things get a little too _real_ between them.

When Sterling catches April’s hand just as she’s reaching for the door handle, she half expects it to be wrenched from her grip.

Instead, April uses the momentum to turn herself back towards Sterling’s body, her free hand coming to press against Sterling’s stomach, fingers splayed as she pushes Sterling backwards until she bumps into the teacher’s desk with a thud.

When April does finally remove her other hand from Sterling’s, it’s to pull her down into a desperate, bruising kiss.

Sterling doesn’t even bother trying to suppress the moan she releases as April’s hand and body push her further into the desk, too focused on pouring every last messy emotion she has into the kiss, too dazed by the way April is pulling her apart with her hands and her lips and her teeth. It's too much, and not enough, and every part of her body that she can register burns and tingles with every swipe of April's tongue.

It could be minutes or hours, for all Sterling knows.

The sound of the door creaking open feels like someone ripping the world right out from under her, just as it rips April right out of her (wandering) hands. Without thinking she steps forward, as if to block April from view from the intruder, not that she's sure it will make much of a difference. April is facing away from the door, and Sterling is close enough that she can feel the way she trembles and her breath is heaving.

“Oh shit, wow, okay. That’s.. I did not need to see that.”

Sterling practically collapses with relief that it’s only Blair, who is edging into the room with one hand help up in surrender and the other clapped firmly over her eyes. No-one has been outed today. “Sterl, we’re er, late for… work. Wrap it up.”

Sterling has to stifle a giggle, a bashful grin pulling at her lips, but as she reaches behind her for April’s hand it fades when she finds nothing but empty space. When she turns her head, April has already packed up her things and is making a swift exit. She spares her precisely one anguished, apologetic glance before she slips past Blair and is gone. Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh angst, I wish I knew how to quit you.
> 
> It needed a wee transition chapter, the next one WILL be the last.


End file.
